When I say loose change, I’m not talking about the kind that involves pennies, dimes, nickels and quarters.  I’m talking about the kind that involves transition.  Sometimes change comes suddenly, unexpectedly and with a bang, yet often change is subtle or what I call “loose change”.  One thing is for certain and that is change is inevitable and certain, in life and in business.It’s no coincidence that the opportunity for me to write an article on “Change” would come directly after I finished reading Wayne Dyer’s book called “Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life:  Living the Wisdom of the Tao”.  With the Tao and Wayne Dyer’s interpretation as a guide, I would like to offer the following advice on the way you look at change in your business.

One of the great messages of the Tao is to live without excess, to voluntarily decide in favor of simplicity, to know when to stop, to decrease, to do things in moderation and to stop accumulating.  This is a hard model to follow in a world where sales managers strive for increased sales from their teams and where people often measure success by how much wealth they amass.  What most businesses don’t understand is that the more you give, the more you receive.

I work with a web design company that has adopted a wonderful model for giving some of their excess profits away.  Each year, they set aside $100,000 that will be given to a charitable cause at the end of the year.  Throughout the year, their employees visit the charitable organizations that apply for the money.  This gives the employees an inside look at the people who will distribute the money they give and the causes behind the names.  The employees become educated about the various causes and become volunteers in the process.  There is a real connection made between people.  When the money is rewarded by an employee vote at the end of each year, there is heartfelt confidence in the winner.  An interesting thing has happened to this company’s sales as a result of their giving.  More people want to do business with them because they know that some of their money will be going to a good cause.  What can your company do to share the excess and stop accumulating to pay it forward instead?

Letting go and looking at things without attachment is another message of the Tao.  Get rid of a few rules, never use force and live without authoritarianism.  I find that if I give my contractors flexibility, they often do way more than I expect.  When I change to allow people to share their opinions and viewpoints, I always learn way more than dictating my own rules and ways of being.  When I stop myself from speaking and genuinely take the time to listen to others, I always learn something that enhances my business.  Is there a rule you could give up in your business?  Could you allow your employees some flex time or delegate a decision that really doesn’t have to be made by you?  How can you be more flexible in your business dealings?

I was discussing with one of my colleagues the other day how I need a new bookshelf.  She suggested I make a bookshelf out of books.  Why buy a bookshelf when I can take a few books I probably will never open again and make a frame out of them to support the books I will reference again?  Not only will I save money by not buying a bookshelf, I’ll have a really cool piece of artwork suspended in space that will cause my clients to pause yet also serve a function. What can you change in your business to let go of something that is no longer useful?  Can you stop before you buy something and recycle something you already have or look at something old in a new way?  Make a list of 10 things that you’ve labeled useless or outdated and re-interpret them.

Change the way you think of yourself as separate and start seeing yourself and your business connected to everyone and every other business.  I often put myself in my clients’ or employees’ shoes. 

How would I feel if my order didn’t arrive on time?  How would I feel if I missed my child’s soccer practice to work overtime?   When you shift your perspective towards connecting with and understanding others will you recycle, relax and accept more.   Will you judge less?  What happens to your thought process to know that your business is connected to the entire planet?  I never see my competition as a threat.  In fact, I often seek out the competition to see if they are interested in partnering on projects.  What does it matter if we’re all successful?  My energy is better spent wishing my competition well than sending out fear-based thoughts against them.  Changing my thought process changes the way I conduct business.

Change is the only constant in life.  You are bound to feel this ebb and flow in business.  “When bad fortune feels so troublesome that you can’t get unstuck, see good fortune leaning on it”.   Everything changes.  We wouldn’t know what good is if we hadn’t experience the bad.  We couldn’t appreciate beauty if something wasn’t ugly.  The one thing you can bank on in your business is change.  Why not just expect it and accept it?